Well, I've realized that it's impossible to get an HD camcorder that works as a "webcam" of sorts on the Mac that will record live video into programs like iMovie. Unless I get a firewire HDV camcorder, I'm stuck.

But, I had a thought today:

Do any of these little "hybrid" camcorders have an option to view live video through their video output jacks? If so, then I can hook them up to my video converter box (which has firewire) and get the live HD video into my iMovie.

Any suggestions and/or models that would do this would be appreciated!

I appreciate you might be wanting to view color corrected higher resolution footage on a bigger screen as you film. or you might want to record the footage into your PC instead.

Many of the cameras have the annoying feature of giving a delayed compressed image ion the LCD and the output, so not only does the image show rolling shutter, but the delay makes it look even more drunk.

Usually the live output of a camera bypasses compression stage to present a "live" image, not a delayed one. But, it appears many if not all ambarella based cheap cameras (the ones mostly around here) have this delay. There are more expensive ambarella based cameras (Samsung, possibly Sanyo HD2000 and similar, Kodak and RCA) that could possibility be different. Anyway, it is worth checking out the Sanyo HD2000 (and the camcorder like model) Kodak and RCA (latest 1080p model).